


requisitioned

by neoneco



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Eo's Not Into Fucking Eighth Graders Sorry, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Light Sadism, Like The Slowest Burn Ever... Not Even A Smolder, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Stockholm Syndrome, Unreliable Narrator, Violence Used As Discipline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-03-16 16:37:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13640154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neoneco/pseuds/neoneco
Summary: Barry Allen went missing on the way home from school on the 10th of April, 2003. It was a Thursday.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey there I'm living my Worst Life and now you all have to suffer with me

Barry walked determinedly away from his middle school, anger and resentment bubbling with every quick step he took. Tony Woodward had cornered him on the way to the bus, called him a "cowardly little bitch," and threw his backpack over the teachers parking lot fence. By the time Barry had climbed it, retrieved all his papers, his pens, and his math book from where they'd spilled out of his bag and gotten back on the right side of the fence, the bus was long gone.

He didn't _have_ to walk home, strictly speaking. He could have waited for Iris to get done with softball practice and asked for a ride back to the West’s house with the parent carpool. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened - Barry knew from experience that Maria’s mom would be more than happy to give him a lift. 

He could have just called the station and asked someone to get ahold of Joe. Barring that,  Barry also knew several beat cops that Joe trusted to get his daughter and foster kid home if he couldn't do it himself. He had options.

Instead he began the walk home brimmimg with resentment and annoyance for the whole sorry situation.  For Tony Woodward, for Joe, who worked nearly every day and could rarely pick him or Iris up. 

For his parents, who were either dead or incarcerated for murdering the other. Who left him at the mercy of sympathetic adults, who at best thought he was delusional and at worst thought he was trying to cover for his murderer father. Who left him to be adopted by his best friend's dad, the same man who arrested Barry's dad for a crime he didn't commit, could never have committed.

His movements felt jerky, his muscles thrummed with restrained energy. Running, and walking, usually helped to calm him down. Hence, the walk. Barry's therapist was a big fan of exercise being used as a coping mechanism. She said that he should join the high school track team, that since he started running recreationally, he'd reported less feelings of anger and hopelessness and that a structured running schedule might be good for him. 

Barry didn't know if he would agree that he'd been happier since taking up running.  It wasn't that he wasn't getting angry, just that he'd run for so long he'd distract himself. The walk to Joe's house, three and a half miles, and at a slow pace, wouldn't bring him to that point, but it would give him time to stew over his anger and maybe let some of it go. 

The streets bled into one another, the sidewalk pavement morphing into one long amorphous path. It was like Barry was the only one moving in the world, the sidewalk a conveyor belt upon which he watched the neighborhood pass by. It was comforting to think of himself like that, like he was oblivious to the activity around him, walking right through it untouched. 

Barry breathed deeply, willing his mind to go as blank as he could manage. He started counting his steps, a familiar distraction from the long walk ahead of him and the smoldering anger he was trying to let go of. He eased his strides into a smooth gait of motion. 

He'd started too late to get an accurate read on how many steps it would take to get to Joe's house from the school, but he was betting it'd be around six thousand from where he'd started. Every twenty steps, he stuck out a finger on his left hand. When he reached one hundred, five sets of twenty, he'd put them all back in and stick out a finger on his right hand. When he got to five hundred, all he'd have to remember was that he'd had one five hundred value and then add the remaining fingers on either hand to get his total. It was a simple way to keep track without losing count, and only really got sticky when he got into the high thousands and he had to keep several numbers in mind at once. It was part counting game, part memory game, and very distracting. The more complicated the game became, the less brain power Barry could devote to emotions. It always dispersed the anger in Barry like nothing else. 

He'd never told anyone about this habit. He had some kind of feeling that it wasn't exactly normal. He couldn't remember if he'd started it before or after his mother died, and that made him uncomfortable. 

Four thousand seven hundred fifty-one steps, and roughly a half hour, later he crossed the street to the more residential area that the Wests lived in. Barry knew, at this point, he was at least three fourths of the way back. His backpack swung with every step, and the straps dug into his shoulders.

The street around him was quiet. Cars rarely passed and any students who’d started the walk with him at the school had peeled off during his trek, going separate ways home. No one who walked lived as far as the Wests did. He figured it was because anyone else who lived out here knew better than to miss the bus. 

There was only one other person on the street, a man with dark hair walking idly in front of him. He walked like the type of person who gets a gym membership for the sake of having a gym membership. That being said, something about the way he swung his arms told Barry that he'd have good running form.

Barry checked his watch. It'd been nearly an hour since school got out. If it weren't Tony Freakin’ Woodward, he would have gotten home by now.

Anger flared up again, and he suddenly realized he didn't know if he was remembered to put a finger up for the last twenty steps, or the twenty before the last twenty. Checking his watch and people watching had thrown him off his count. He kicked a chunk of crumbled sidewalk, scowling. 

Barry felt a wisp of movement and a sudden pinch on his neck. He craned it to look around him. Did a bird just fly by him or something? He rubbed his neck absently and went back to ruminating about his miscount.

If he were to round up, he'd probably still be in the ballpark of where he was supposed to be before he distracted himself from his distraction. On the other hand, since he had lost count he had stopped counting, but continued walking, meaning that even if he were to assume he'd added the forty he couldn't remember, he was still going to be off count. He could stop walking until he decided what to do, but he wasn't the only one on the street and he didn't want to just stop suddenly for no apparent reason. Of course, he could start a new count, but he had already gotten up to five thousand and he really didn't want all that counting to have been for nothing. He had really wanted to see how far off he would have been from his original estimation of six thousand steps. 

Frustrated, he kicked the same sidewalk chunk again, harder, and watched it skitter to a stop several feet ahead of him. In front of him, the man paused and turned his head to look behind him. He glanced at the sidewalk chunk, and then at Barry, as if to say, “That nearly hit me, you know.” Barry was torn between the desire to glare at the man and shrug apologetically. He eventually settled on the shrug, though he could only guess at how apologetic it looked.

Not very, if the man's quirking lips, an involuntary show of mirth, were to be taken at face value.

Barry's eyesight went blurry for a moment and the next step he took wobbled. He stopped walking. Something wasn't right. ' _The ground shouldn't be moving like this,'_ he thought. His stomach gurgled unhappily, nausea rising, as his legs shook.

The man turned to him fully and started walking towards him. Barry blinked and the sidewalk rushed upwards. Two warm hands grasped his shoulders. Barry pulled, intending to jerk backwards, but only managed to turn himself around and get a good look at the man who had caught him.

He had clear blue eyes, thick dark hair, and thin lips, curled into a small victorious smile.

“Shh,” the man said. Barry's eyes drooped. He struggled to keep them open. He tried to scream for help, but it only came out as a mumble. “That's it, Barry. Just let go… “


	2. Chapter 2

Barry woke up, startled, nausea creeping up his throat. He crawled to the edge of the mattress he’d woken on and took several long, deep breaths over the edge of it, unwilling to throw up where he slept. He was startled to see that the mattress was seated on the ground; there was no box spring or bed frame. He glanced around himself, frantically, as he started to really take in his surroundings. He started timing his breaths, breathe in four, hold seven, let out eight, trying to stave off panic.

This wasn’t the school. It wasn’t Joe’s house. As far as Barry knew, it wasn’t even a hospital. He didn’t know where he was. The small room around him, grey brick walls and industrial lights overhead, wasn’t familiar in any sense of the word.

The mattress he was on was fitted with a dark red set of sheets and a soft white knitted blanket lay beside the pillow Barry’s head was just on. It was pushed flush to two walls, in the corner of the room. More importantly, Barry saw that his clothes had been changed - he was no longer wearing the jeans and sweatshirt combination he had worn to school. Instead he was clothed in a warm pair of flannel pajama pants and a plain white long-sleeved shirt. Afraid of what he would find, Barry peeked under the pajama pants.

He still had his underwear. That was a relief.

The sleeves of the shirt went exactly far enough to reach his wrists, the hem of the pants stopping just after they reached his ankle. The elastic waistband was just loose enough to be comfortable without being overly baggy. There was no waste, no excess of fabric. It fit him perfectly.

It was, for Barry, the most distressing part of the experience so far.

He patted his legs and chest down, before carefully standing. He didn't have any broken bones. His head felt fuzzy, and the room tilted slightly as he shifted his weight, but it didn't hurt. He didn't have any bumps or bruises that he could feel. His bare feet against the cold concrete floor sent shiver up his spine.

‘ _Don't cry,’_ he thought angrily to himself. ‘ _Joe won't let anyone take you. Someone might have seen something, see whoever grabbed you. It's okay. It's okay.’_

The tears didn't fall, but they lingered in Barry Allen's eyes. He took the room in again, desperate for stimuli to keep him from panicking.

The room was around eight feet long and ten feet wide. Directly in front of the mattress, and along the shorter wall, hung a heavy looking metal door. Barry approached it and jiggled the door handle. It didn't budge; it must have been locked. The bottom of the door had a hole at the bottom of it, the size and shape of a mail slot. Barry got on his knees and tried to peer through it, but the other side of the door was too dark to make anything out.

Barry gulped and moved away from the door. The yawning darkness behind it was, somehow, less appealing than the room he'd woken up in.

Barry moved to the only other door in the room, situated to the left of the mattress on the longer wall. This door was simple wood, and he pulled it open with no resistance. Behind it, lay a bathroom.

It had all the staples of a bathroom, despite the cold hard concrete floor, and the porous grey brick walls. It had a toilet, a sink, and further into room was a small tiled area, cordoned off with a clear plastic shower curtain. When he pulled on it, Barry saw that the interior of the stall was already furnished with a bar of soap and a small unmarked bottle of shampoo. Barry inspected it, flipping it open and sniffing; it smelled exactly like the shampoo he had at Joe's house.

Barry’s tongue went dry in his mouth, and he hastily set the shampoo bottle back where he’d found it. Investigation done, he retreated back into the room with the mattress. He noticed, looking up, that there were two blinking red lights on either side of the room, one over the mattress and one over the door. He stuck his head into the bathroom and saw that there was another blinking red light just over the doorway, pointed towards the shower.

Cameras.

“Hey!” he yelled, looking up at the camera over the heavy metal door. “You're listening, right? Let me out! My, my dad’s” Barry's voice cracked, and he didn't care to inspect why. “My dad's a cop! You're not going to get away with this!”

Barry yelled until his throat went out. The only sound in the room was the sound of his own exerted panting. Barry's eyes were wet with what he assured himself was anger.

Barry didn’t know if anyone heard him. He had no way of knowing. He paced, and tried not to let the tears spill over.

Barry counted his steps, measured the walls, tried the shower head and the toilet handle and the sink’s water temperatures. He turned the mattress sideways and tried to stand on it to reach the cameras. He tried to pull the handle off the metal door, holding him in the room, but there weren’t any exposed screws for him to dig his fingernails into. And then, finally, when Barry had exhausted himself, when he had done every single thing he had thought to do, Barry wrapped the fluffy white blanket around himself, curled into a ball in the bathroom under the shower-head, and let the tears spill over.

He didn’t want the mattress. He didn’t want to take his kidnapper up on any offer of comfort. He wouldn't be wearing the blanket at all if it weren't for the fact that his cell was, at most, fifty degrees Fahrenheit.

At first, Barry tried to keep track of how much time had passed. But counting seconds, and then minutes, and then hours, became too overwhelming. His mind was racing and distracting him. What was the point? He didn’t know what time he had woken up, how long he had been gone, how long since he was taken. The only proof Barry had that time had passed was the hour and a half he had determinedly counted every second, and the fact that his stomach was growling, his throat dry as dust. He thought, bitterly, of the half of a bologna sandwich he had had in his bag on the walk back to Joe’s. He wished he had just eaten it during lunch. He wished he had a cup of water. Anything.

Was he going to starve in here? It looked like someone had gone to some trouble to make this, this ( _kidnapper dungeon_ , his mind whispered) cell into something he could live in for a while. They had even gotten his shampoo. They wouldn’t just leave him in here to starve, right? He remembered watching a documentary in school that said something like the human body could survive up to three weeks without food until it gave out.

Barry really didn’t want to be putting that to the test.

Eventually, his thirst pushed him into leaving his cocoon of warmth, and stepping to the sink. He turned it on and stuck his hand out. Then he adjusted the temperature. He cupped his hands under the warm water, trying to catch the falling water, before giving in and slurping it directly from the faucet. It tasted terrible, metallic and flat, but he swallowed as much as he could, unwilling to waste even a drop.

He was on his fourth mouthful when he suddenly heard a noise. A… scraping? Barry slapped the faucet off and shot out of the bathroom, head swiveling wildly until he found the source of the noise. Pushed through the slot in the door, was a blue metal camping plate. It had several nutritional bars stacked on top of each other, a bag of carrots, two apples. Beside it was a matching empty blue camping mug. Barry heard shuffling outside just outside the door.

“Hey!” he said, throat sore. “Let me out! What is this!”

The shuffling stopped.

“This,” a man’s voice said. He said the word very precisely. He sounded like a teacher. Barry imagined he could see a hand waving demonstratively at the tray. “Is your dinner. I suggest you don’t eat it too quickly. I don’t know when I’ll next be available to feed you.”

“If you let me out of here,” Barry said, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. “You wouldn’t have to worry about feeding me.”

The man laughed.

“Mm,” he agreed, amused. “But then, what would guarantee your presence when I return?”

“I won't try to escape! I just don't want to be in here! Please, I'm, I'm claustrophobic!”

“Oh, really?” the man said. It sounded like he was smiling. ”One would think that that would have come up in your therapy.” There was that shuffling again from outside of the room, and Barry’s heart seized as he realized the noise was the man’s footsteps walking away from the room.

“No! Wait, I’m sorry! Come back!”

Barry heard that hateful huff of laughter again, barely more than a chuckle, before hearing a pair of feet taking careful, measured steps up, what Barry could only assume to be, a staircase.

“Goodbye, Mr. Allen. I’ll be back soon,” the man called. Barry heard a door open, and screamed in the hopes that someone else would hear it. A slamming noise - the door was shut.

It was quiet again. Only Barry’s heavy breathing could be heard in the room. Each one echoed off the walls, resounding back at him, mocking. He felt fresh tears well up in his eyes, and he rubbed angrily at them.

‘ _Okay,’_ he thought to himself. ‘ _You still don’t know anything. Where you are, who he is, why he took you. But you do know that he’s feeding you. He wants you alive for something. This is fine. You can work with this.’_

Barry shivered. Whatever he was here for, he didn’t want any part in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i've edited and re-edited this chapter and finally got it to where i think i like it. welcome to Barry's Hell.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the last chapter's comments, a commenter (Tori) asked about what Joe was doing during all this! well, here's your answer!

Barry paced. He drank. He nibbled on one of the apples until he had reached the core, and had no more apple to nibble. He ate a few carrots. He even gave in and tried a nutritional bar, which tasted nutty, oaty, and vaguely of licorice.

Most importantly, he thought. He thought and he thought and he thought and he came to a few troubling conclusions.

The first - he was sure it had at least been several hours, and the lights hadn’t gone off at any point. His internal clock was telling him it was night time, but his eyes were still lit up by the bright fluorescent bars connected to the ceiling. He had no way of knowing how long he had actually been in the room. He was exhausted, and he knew that as soon as he slept his time confusion would only get worse.

The second - he still had no idea who was keeping him, or why he was being kept. This kind of thing had to have been premeditated, because the man had gotten his exact shampoo, the sheets were his favorite color, and the blanket reminded him of the cream colored one Joe had on the back of the couch at home. The room had been ready for Barry, had been designed specifically _for him._ This guy wasn’t just a guy who kidnapped kids, this guy was a man who had carefully selected _Barry_ , and probably only Barry, for something in particular.

The third - Joe wouldn’t be able to find him. Not quickly, not with how meticulous the kidnapper had been. Neither he, nor Iris, would have known that Barry didn’t get on the bus. He wouldn’t know that Barry had walked, what route he had gone, when he was taken. It had been a few hours, so he probably knew by now that he was missing, but the Wests really had no way of knowing for how long. Even more distressing, Barry hadn't recognized the man's face when he had seen it on the street, so Joe wouldn't even have anywhere to start. Even Barry would think it to have been a random, opportunistic type thing if not for the detail and meticulousness that went into setting the rooms up.

It all came down to this: Barry was on his own. He was on his own with a man who had kidnapped him for probably very very bad reasons. A man who had already proved that he wasn’t gullible or delusional; he hadn’t believed Barry wouldn’t run from him when he’d “promised,” hadn't even hesitated before dismissing Barry's alleged claustrophobia. The man was dangerous.

Barry had to escape, and he had to do it on his own.

He thought about what he had. He had a pair of pajamas, sheets, a mattress, a small metal mug. He had several sources of water, and he had a fair assumption that his kidnapper was recording what he was doing, if not actively watching it. If Barry had kidnapped someone, he would keep an eye on them, make sure they didn’t try anything. Especially if, as the man had implied, he wasn’t able to watch in person.

Barry went about collecting things. Then, once he was sure he’d thought it all through, he set his plan in motion.

First, Barry wadded his clothes and his sheets up into a tight ball and blocked the food slot in the metal door. The flannel pants folded into a decent size blockage, and the sheets and shirt only helped pad it down. Then he dragged the mattress into the bathroom, along with the metal plate. He set the plate down, face down, on top of the drain in the shower, and then set the mattress on top of _that_ to hold it down. Then, he stuck his metal camping cup into the toilet, wedging it down until it could block the basin from flushing. He tried to pull the back off of the toilet first, but had to compromise when he found that the lid of the toilet was caulked firmly shut. Finally, he stuck his carrots down the hole in the sink, and then broke the browning apple core into pieces, dropping it down, and plugging the hole with thick chunks of the nutritional bars and pieces of plastic taken from the carrot’s bag and the bar’s wrapping.

He turned the sink faucet on experimentally. Water coursed down, going into the pipe, but quickly overflowing, unable to pass the blockage. Barry grinned, then moved to the toilet. He flushed it. The toilet tried, desperately, to suck down the cup but, finding itself unable to, filled the basin to the brim with water. It would require constant flushing to continue to overflow, but Barry was satisfied with his success. He turned to the shower, and turned it on with giddy excitement. The water thudded torrentially against the mattress, soaking it. The water was coming down too quickly to drain through the blockage of the mattress and the plate covering the drain underneath. Barry gave the toilet one last flush before he left the bathroom.

The water would take a while to really start flooding the rooms, but Barry had nothing but time. He sat down on the cold and impersonal concrete floor, a few feet away from the metal door and, after a flick of his eyes to the cameras, trained his eyes on it. The man would see what was happening on the cameras at some point. He would come. And when he did, Barry would be ready.

  


Joe West stood outside the visitor's door to Iron Heights Penitentiary, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and wishing like hell he didn't have to be here.

It was 4:53pm, Friday, the eleventh of April, and Barry Allen had been missing for at least twenty four hours. All that Joe had been able to ascertain, for certain, is that the bus driver who usually took their route home hadn't seen him get on the bus. Hadn't even seen him running behind the bus, as he was sometimes wont to do.

Thus: Barry had missed the bus. Barry hadn't told anyone he had missed the bus. Somewhere between there and home, Barry was, presumably, taken. And Joe hadn't even realized it until he got home later that night.

Joe had gotten home from work and unlocked the door, supporting a paper bag with one hand and shouldering his way into the house with the other. He had stopped at the store on the way home. They'd ran out of milk two mornings ago and he hadn't had a chance until then to replace it. Iris crowed into his space as he stepped through the door, nearly making him drop the groceries. She’d looked behind him, searchingly.

“Barry's not with you?” She said. Her eyes were wide. She wrung her hands out in front of her, a nervous habit she’d picked up from watching Barry.

“Iris, what do you mean Barry's not with me? It’s a Thursday, you know I was at work. Of course he’s not with me.” Joe pushed into the house and went to the kitchen. He pulled the refrigerator open and put the milk away. Iris hovered behind him, her eyes large and unblinking.

“He wasn't here when I got home from softball, Dad, and neither was his backpack. I thought maybe you'd picked him up to go see his dad and that it had ran late or something.”

Joe ran a hand along against his mouth, resting on the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes. He'd really thought he and Barry had worked through this.

“Okay, let's calm down. This isn't the first time Barry’s run off before. It's not even the first time he's done it without telling anyone. I'm going to call the Warden, ask if Barry made his way to Iron Heights. You go take a shower, okay Iris? It’ll help relax you, and you need one after sliding around in the dirt during softball. I'm sure Barry's fine.”

Iris went upstairs with a grumble and Joe called Warden Wolfe. The Warden expressed his surprise at the call and assured him that he hadn't seen hide nor hair of Mr. Allen, and that he would have called if he had. Joe hung up, stomach clenching, and he called everyone. He called the Sunquists, who he knew had a son, Andy,  in several of Barry's classes, to see if there was some kind of group project Barry might be working on. He called the local library. He called the front desk at the station. Iris, hair damp and in pajamas, watched him with building worry, following his movements as he paced and called and paced and called.

He searched the front room, the kitchen, and Barry's bedroom. He couldn’t find Barry’s backpack. Iris was right; it just wasn’t there. His clothes, his shoes, and his toothbrush, all thing that Barry had taken before when he'd ran away, remained exactly where he’d left them. There wasn't any food missing from the cabinets. Everyone Joe had talked to agreed - they hadn't seen Barry Allen.

Finally, he called Captain Frye.

Now it had been twenty four hours. More realistically, it had probably been twenty six hours. The bus driver had sworn up and down that he hadn’t seen him, which meant he probably walked home from school. The kid had anger issues; Dr. Harding suggested he take up running or walking his emotions out. Joe could visualize Barry, all too easily, storming away from the school in a huff that he’d missed the bus. The way Barry’s brows would have pinched when he’d considered asking for a ride, another adult for help.

It wasn’t like Barry to not tell anyone where he went. Maybe at first, maybe when he first started living with Joe and Iris, but not now. Ever since he’d ran the seven miles to Iron Heights alone, Joe and Henry had set up a visiting schedule; Barry could see his dad once a week, every Friday after school got out. Joe kept to this promise no matter Barry’s behavior. Even if Barry was being the brattiest kid Joe had ever had the displeasure of dealing with, he still took him to see Henry. He had even put in a standing request with Captain Frye to have the time off every Friday in order to get there before visiting hours closed at 5:30. He and Barry and Henry had reached an understanding.

Barry wouldn’t miss visiting time for anything. Not willingly. Not without calling. Not without saying something to Iris or Joe. He wouldn’t have just left on his own.

Which lead Joe to where he was standing now, standing outside Iron Heights Penitentiary, heart in his throat, because he had to walk in there and tell Henry Allen that his son went missing, and may well have been kidnapped, on his watch.

He took a deep breath,  pulled open the door. Handed over his gun. Went through the security gate. Signed the visitors’ log. And, finally, sat down from across Henry Allen, alleged spouse-killer and father.

Henry sat down across him, separated by a thick plate of glass. He picked up the phone. Joe did the same.

Henry's lips were thin, his mouth tight. Like Iris’s had, his eyes passed over Joe and searched behind him, as if Joe had Barry tucked away, waiting to bring him out until the last second. Joe’s stomach lurched.

“Where's my son?” Henry said. His eyes bored holes into the cop across from him. “What happened? Where's Barry?”

‘ _Yeah,’_ Joe thought despairingly. ‘ _That's the question.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned! thank you to everyone who's written comments!!! i read them all and i love you.  
> also yes the calorie bar tastes like licorice because anise being used to give the calorie bars flavor is an amusing trope in Flash fanfiction that i noticed and i wanted to do it RIGHT.


	4. Chapter 4

It was taking a little longer than Barry had thought.

He tried to keep himself entertained. He hummed songs from choir, bounced his knees in time with the tempos. He watched the water leave the bathroom, settle across the floor and stop at the blockage made by his clothes. He shivered, got up, and started pacing, counting every sloshed step. He hummed through all the songs he knew and then he hummed them again, this time doing the girls’ parts. When he finished all those songs, he whistled through the instrumentals.

The water had risen up to his mid calf when the door finally swung open. The man from before strode into the room, brow creased and teeth bared in a snarl. He was wearing a crisp black suit, a dark blue button up shirt peeking out from the suits lapels. His shiny black shoes splashed in the water with the first angry step. Barry dove for the door, trying to push the man over, take him by surprise.

“Oh no you don’t!” The man snarled. He struck out quickly, snatching Barry's arm and using his momentum to throw him over his shoulder. The wind knocked out of him, Barry hung like a rag doll as the man strode further into the room. He marched them into the bathroom, making for the shower. Barry struggled against his grip, using every muscle in his body trying to get loose, kicking wildly at the man’s torso and pushing against the man’s back. His captor only tightened his arms around him.

“That. is. _e_ _nough_ ,” the man said, stalking over to the soaked mattress and throwing Barry down on it. He stepped to the sink, turned the faucet off, and turned back to Barry.

Barry made himself as small as he could, cowering away from the man and from the blasting shower. The man stalked closer. He turned the shower off. He took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, and the tension in his shoulders eased. He looked at Barry with steady, level eyes.

“I don't respond well to misbehavior, Mr. Allen. I'll give you a choice, since this is the first time. Do you want me to break a finger on your right hand, or your left.”

Barry blinked, startled.

“As your punishment. Which would you rather it be?”

Barry's heart hammered fiercely in his chest. He shook his head and stuffed his hands in his armpits. His face went red and his breath stuttered as fresh tears welled up and spilled over.

“No, please, I, I won’t do it again.”

The man advanced on him, boxing him into the  corner of the shower stall. He didn’t smile. If anything, he looked startlingly _blank_. His dark hair dripped water onto his pale and indifferent face. He pinned Barry beneath him with two strong thighs and grabbed both of Barry's wrists, wrenching on them until they were forced out Barry’s armpits. Barry pulled frantically against the man's firm grip.

“No, I don’t imagine you will. I’ve found pain to be a valuable learning tool. Now, left or right? Answer quickly or I'll break your wrists instead.”

Barry's body strained to be as far as he could physically be from the man, to sink into the freezing mattress, but it wasn't enough. He couldn't move. He could barely _breathe_ with the weight of the man on him. He let out a high pitched whine, like a cornered animal.

“One,” he said. The man’s voice was a growl. Barry could feel a shiver, almost a convulsion run through the man’s body. His hands and legs tightened, vice like, around Barry. Barry’s ribs ached.

“Two,”  he said. His hands squeezed harshly, putting grinding pressure on Barry's wrists.

“Thr-”

“Left!” Barry sobbed. The man stopped, the constricting hands on Barry's wrists paused. “Left hand!”

“Hm,” the man said slowly, consideringly. “You were a little late. Are you sure you don't want me to break these?” Strong fingers squeezed again, digging into Barry's abused wrists. Barry whimpered.

“Please, no, please, don't, don't, please, please, my left, please,” Barry whispered. The man's keen blue eyes stared at him, exhilarated, drinking in the scene Barry was making, his red face, the tears, the way Barry's wet hair was splayed out around his head.

Barry averted his eyes, staring up at the ceiling instead.

“... Alright,” the man said. He sounded a little disappointed. He released Barry's right wrist, but kept the other firmly in his grip. Barry immediately pulled at the man's hand around his left wrist uselessly. He couldn’t force the man to let go of his hand, but he did succeed in forcing him to pin Barry’s right arm under his leg as well.

The man took Barry's left hand in his own, forcing Barry's fingers to unfurl. Barry struggled as a warm hand wrapped firmly around his ring finger.

“Please, please, don't,” Barry said. God, he was tired.

“Shhh,” the man said soothingly. He didn’t sound like someone who made soothing sounds very often. Barry clenched his teeth. The man's eyes met his. The expression on the man’s face might have been kind, if it weren’t his eyes weren’t so bright and manic. “You chose this.”

The man wrenched his finger back, fracturing the first bone by his knuckle cleanly and efficiently.

Barry screamed through his teeth, afraid that if opened his mouth, he would bite off his tongue. The man didn't let go of Barry's finger, moving it slowly back to its starting position. Pain reverberated up his arm, and he instinctively tried to jerk his injured hand back.

“Shhh, it's okay,” the man said. He let go of Barry's hands and wrapped his arms around the teenager instead, settling his head against the man's throat. Barry cradled his hand against his chest and cried. A warm hand rubbed circles into Barry's back. “I've got you. Let it out, Barry.”

Barry knew he should be fighting, should be throwing himself away, but it hurt so much. All his energy was going into breathing through his great, hiccuping sobs.

“I'm sorry I had to do that to you,” the man said, nuzzling his face into Barry's hair. “I don't like hurting you, but I will if you do anything like this again, understand?”

There was silence. Then, “Do you _understand_ , Barry, yes or no?”

‘ _Left or right,’_ Barry's mind whispered. It was the same tone.

“Yes!” Barry said. He breathed in suddenly, the kind of choked deep breath one takes when trying to avoid hyperventilating. “Yes, yes, I understand!”

The man smiled. Barry couldn't see it, but he could feel his lips pressing against his scalp. Barry shivered, and not just from the cold or the pain. They sat still for several moments, before the man sighed.

The man shifted, hoisting Barry up from where they sat. The teenager cried out in pain as the man stepped carefully out of the bathroom and into the front room. He set Barry down gently in the corner across from the heavy metal entrance door, and eyed him appraisingly.

Barry felt heavy. He could barely breathe, barely even twitch away, let alone move, let alone fight.

“Now, “ the man said, frowning. “I'm going to leave you here as a show of trust. In order to help the room drain while I'm cleaning, I'm going to be leaving the door open. Know that should you try to run, I will catch you. Getting tackled and falling with your whole weight onto a broken finger will pale in comparison to the pain I will make you feel if you go for the door while my back is turned.”

He man's voice was frank and his eyes alarmingly clear. He sounded slightly inconvenienced, like he was giving a lecture on a subject he considered to be frightfully dull. Like he hadn't just snapped one of Barry's fingers like a twig.

‘ _This guy is crazy,’_ Barry realized with a strange sense of detachment. ‘ _Absolutely psychotic.’_

Barry nodded shakily to indicate his understanding. There was no way in hell he could stand right now, let alone make it towards the door. The man searched his face before nodding himself, standing up, and walking into the bathroom. Barry could hear each sloshy step as he moved around, his movements quick and efficient as he unclogged the toilet, moved the mattress off the drain, and dug the blockages out of the sink.

Barry stared at the open door. He wouldn’t be able to stand without making some sort of noise and couldn't get to it fast enough. He knew he wouldn't be able to do it. Why even try? Why had he even tried this?

“Why are you doing this.” The words fell hollowly out of his mouth. He heard the man pause in the other room. Barry waited.

“Because,” the man said, and paused. Barry got the sense that he was considering his answer very carefully. “You, Barry Allen, are one of a kind. You need to be kept… safe.”

The man re-entered the front room, pulling the soaked sheets and soggy mattress through the bathroom door and then the open metal door beyond. He walked past Barry with the plastic curtain from the shower, the shampoo and soap, and the metal plate and cup he’d brought with the food. Barry didn’t know what he’d done to the sink, but he’d heard the man test it, and a satisfied huff of air leave his mouth, so he assumed he’d unclogged it.

The room was bare, wet, and cold by the time the man was done. Despite being utterly soaked, the man didn’t shiver. He stared down at where Barry was huddled, curled into a ball, shivering, and wearing only his underwear, with a contemplative gaze.

Barry considered standing, putting them on equal levels, but he didn't want to bait the man into hurting him more. Something about the man's gaze made him want to make himself as small as possible. Unthreatening.

“What are you doing?” Barry asked. His teeth chattered. The chill was really beginning to set in.

The man frowned, like he was disappointed in Barry. “I suppose this will have to do as far as your punishment goes. I’ll be bringing you some replacement bedding soon, so you don’t get hypothermia, but since you so clearly didn’t want the food I brought you, I’ll be leaving you in here for a few days without it.” The man suddenly smiled. It was warm, almost paternal. He was giving Barry whiplash. “After all, you have to learn sometime that actions have consequences, Mr. Allen.”

“Who… _are_ you?”

The man _hmm_ ’d thoughtfully. He brought both hands to the back of his head, resting in his dark hair. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened as he regarded Barry’s form. Barry tried not to fidget.

“I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm. My name is Eobard Thawne.”

‘ _Eobard Thawne,’_ Barry thought. A full body tremor wracked his body, and he kept his face utterly blank of his thoughts. _‘I’ll remember that. I know your face, I know your name. All I have to do is out wait you. When I get out of here, I’ll lead them right to you.’_

“That’s a weird name,” he said cautiously. He wanted to like this version of the man, the one who responded to questions and relaxed his shoulders. He was more likeable than the version with the empty eyes, the one who'd promised to chase him down, as if Barry's failure to escape would be a foregone conclusion. The one who’d asked, with a calm, nonchalant voice, “ _Left or right?”_

The man shrugged. “No more than Bartholomew, I’d say.” He let out a tired sounding sigh. “I'll return soon with some warm clothes to replace these,” he said, gesturing towards the pile of sogging wet garments behind him in the dark hall. Barry’s eyes followed the movement hungrily. He didn't know if the man, Thawne, was blocking the sight of the hall with his body purposefully, but it was making the longing in the pit of Barry's stomach grow deeper. It'd only been a few hours, half a day at most, and he already hated this room. “Until then, try not to endanger your own life too much before I get back.”

Barry scoffed.

“I wouldn’t have drowned from that much water,” he protested. Thawne raised a challenging eyebrow.

“Maybe not, but what do you think would have happened if the water had reached high enough to hit that outlet?” At Barry’s blank expression, he pointed to a section of the wall behind Barry. A section of the wall which was previously covered by the mattress where a small white electrical outlet stood out against monotonous grey brick.

“You would have _died_ ,” Thawne said. He spat the word ‘died’ like it was venom. “Just to get my attention. I'd think it was flattering if it wasn’t so foolish. That’s why I broke your finger, and that’s why you’re going to remain here, and _behave_ , until I get back.”

Barry nodded, shaken. He’d thought the flooding would just do some damage. Maybe force the man to come in to keep him from drowning. Not _electrocution_.

Thawne searched his face. Then, seemingly satisfied with what he’d seen, he turned, walking away and pulling the door after him. The heavy metal door closed with a _schnck_ and click of the lock.

Barry was alone. Again.

He brought his legs up to his chest and held his hand, four fingers prickling with the cold and the fifth swelling with blood and throbbing with pain. He tried to convince himself it was worth it.

He knew his captor’s name. He knew his face. He knew what kind of clothes he was wearing - high end, fancy suit, nice shoes - and so he knew that Thawne was rich. There couldn’t be that many rich Thawnes in Central City, could there? Barry just had to bide his time, wait until there was an opportunity for him to send some kind of message. He could do this. He’d won this round.

So why did the back of his mouth taste like defeat?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you everyone for your reviews! i read them all and they are WONDERFUL. you are all WONDERFUL.
> 
> poor barry. he really didn't think this one through lmao.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter, eobard mentions what prompted his snatching of barry aka, the divergence from canon that allowed me to write this fic. this chapter is also a bit. uh. creepy. even for me. enjoy?

Eobard waited until the door had fully closed behind him, locked and secure, before he tapped into the Speed Force. The dark hallway slowed to a standstill, the water dripping down his dark hair and stolen face frozen in the air. He gave the pile of sheets and clothes a disgruntled look.

He hadn’t meant to lose it like that. He regretted breaking Barry’s finger like he had - escalating the situation and dealing harshly with the misbehavior may have been very satisfying, but it would take a long time before Barry would forget the pain he’d caused. Eobard had tried to be reasonable, but he’d just been so angry. Barry could have  _ died _ . The last two months, hell, the last two years, would have been for absolutely nothing.

There was no Reverse Flash without the Flash, no Eobard Thawne without Barry Allen. The car accident in February had revealed that much to him. Barry Allen must not be allowed to come to harm.

A broken finger was a small price to pay for imparting that lesson unto Barry. It wasn’t all bad. The tears, at least, had been captivating.

He moved the mattress to the end of the hallway and used his speed to funnel air towards it. It may not be warm, but it would be dry. The blankets and sheets would be better served with a cycle in the washing machine. Happily, Eobard was well situated; if he had attempted to take Barry before now, he would have been hard pressed to hide the evidence of another person, not to mention all the noise the boy made. Now, however, as a widower living in an opulent condo several miles out away from Central City, he had no such concerns. The closest neighbor was six miles away, and Eobard was much faster than Barry. Even if the boy were to escape, he would be easily caught.

Eobard climbed a set of concrete steps leading up to a heavy metal hatch and used one hand to push it up, using the other to carry the soaked sheets, blanket, and pillow. He exited the bunker, and closed the hatch behind him, securing the false rock surface back into its innocuous place.

He’d constructed Barry’s cell two days after the boy had been hit by a car in February, bruising his ribs and breaking his collarbone. When he’d originally purchased the condo, he’d done so for the abandoned hiking trails a half mile to the south of the property. When he’d decided to kidnap Barry Allen, he’d found the perfect spot for it; at the first twist in the hiking trail closest to his condo, there was large pile of rocks and boulders that would perfectly disguise an entrance into a bunker, just far enough from his home that it would avoid detection. The foot traffic from his visits would also be concealed by the old hiking trails.

He’d done the research for building a “bomb shelter,” dug the hole himself, laid in the piping, the wiring and the supports, and stolen the equipment needed to lay concrete. It took him less than a week to finish. It took only a day to buy the mattress and sheets Barry would need, the clothes he'd be wearing, and the supplies he'd need for the feeding and washing of a teenage boy.

The rest of the time had been spent running calculations. What sort of impact would snatching Allen have on the timeline? 

Building the bunker and calculating timeline variables had been a nice distraction from the psychotic break he’d had when he was forcibly brought face to face with Barry Allen’s imminent mortality. He remembered sneaking into the hospital after Barry was hit, seeing the purple bruising on the then twelve year old’s delicate cheekbones. The road rash on his palms from where he’d scraped against the gravel. The careful way he breathed, even in sleep, careful not to disturb his bruised ribs.

The possibility had existed, in those stolen moments sitting by Barry Allen’s hospital bedside, that not only would Eobard never return home, but that there’d be nothing to return to. A future without the Flash. A few years ago, the idea would have been intoxicating. Now it was terrifying.

The Flash had taken over his childhood, his career, his research. Had been such an integral piece of his identity that when he'd killed Nora, and thus erased his nemesis, his connection to the Speed Force had sputtered out. Without the Flash to emulate, Eobard would never have reason to give himself super speed. A paradox, and the simplest way to resolve it had been stripping Eobard of his speed.

If Eobard wanted to remain a speedster, and he very much  _ did _ , Barry Allen had to become the Flash. Even if he could set that, the desire to keep his speed, aside, Barry Allen was all he had left, the only thing in this time period that was real anymore. The only thing that could tie Eobard back to his home. The current Barry was small and weak, but he wouldn’t be always. He just had to protect Barry until then. Any timeline repercussions would be worth it if it was to ensure the Flash’s future. Eobard’s future.

He threw the clothes and sheets into the wash and checked the camera feeds. Barry was crying. That was to be expected. Eobard settled in to do some work while he waited for the laundry; he’d let Barry sit and stew in the mess he’d made first. It wouldn’t do to have him getting too comfortable, after all.

 

 

Barry cried quietly to himself, dry little hiccups. He’d been sitting in this room for who knows how long, carefully holding, but not touching, his broken finger. It had turned from a sharp pain to a constant dull painful throb. Barry found that if he didn’t look at it, he could almost pretend that it wasn’t broken. He had gone numb to the pain, probably out of shock. More concerning to him was the purple splotches on his arms and legs, cold and numb. The rope around his forearms was almost a blessing; it was keeping some amount of heat in. 

Where was Thawne? He said he wouldn’t let him get hypothermia, right? Why hadn’t he come back? Had it really not been that long? How much time had passed?

‘ _ What if he got captured,’ _ Barry thought. ‘ _ What if the police arrested him and he’s just going to leave me here to freeze and starve as some kind of final power play?’ _

The thought was daunting. Mostly because Barry suspected, just from what he’d seen so far, that Thawne would absolutely be willing to do that. He’d let Barry die in here, alone, just so that he wouldn’t leave. Even if Barry avoided hypothermia using the only source of heat he had, hot water, and dehydrated, he’d already ruined the remainder of his food during the escape attempt.

Barry wanted the police to arrest Thawne, but only if it meant they could save Barry in the process. He certainly wasn’t going to be getting out of this room on his own. If Thawne were captured, Barry knew with cold certainty that he was the sort of man who'd rather his captive die than be found. He would never willingly reveal Barry's location. 

Barry shivered. His stomach growled. He squeezed his body into an even tighter, smaller ball. There was no sound in the room except his choked breathing and the ever-present hum of fluorescent lights overhead. He was so drained that his eyes kept sliding shut, despite the light overhead and his inability to sleep.

He was dozing, fitfully, when he finally heard movement from outside the door. He jerked awake, aggravating his hand. 

“Ah!” he hissed quietly. Then, louder, “Hey! Thawne!”

There was no verbal response, but a moment later the door swung open. Thawne, now wearing a dry pair of sweatpants and a black T-shirt, walked in casually with a bundle of fabric piled high in his arms. He dumped them unceremoniously to the ground and approached Barry.

Despite himself, Barry scooted as far back as the wall he was propped against would allow him. The last time this man had been this close, he'd pinned him down and snapped his finger. Barry's body instinctively attempted to curl around his wounded hand.

Thawne paused and raised an eyebrow.

“I have a splint for your broken finger,” He said. He folded himself into a seated position and pulled something out of his left pocket, holding it up for inspection. It was a metal and plastic finger splint. Barry’d never needed one before he remembered the way a classmate, Jordan Riccio, had broken his hand against a stone pillar he’d punched in a fit of melodrama. His split had looked the same as the one Thawne was holding. “I don't have any intention of hurting you,”  Thawne said.

At Barry's blatant disbelief, and significant glance down to his bruised and swollen finger, Thawne amended his statement. “I don't have any intention of hurting you  _ right now _ . Unless you've done something to warrant further punishment, there's no need to.”

Barry glared.

“I saw the way your face looked when you broke my finger. You  _ liked  _ it. You like hurting people.”

Thawne blinked.

“Yes,” he agreed easily. “But if I were to hurt you just because I felt like it, how would you ever learn what I do and don't want you to be doing? If you are to learn what behavior is and isn’t acceptable, your punishments need to be consistent, no matter how much I might like it when you cry. My self-control is good enough for that, at least.”

Barry eyed him distrustfully. “And I'm just supposed to trust you?”

Thawne shrugged.

“I really don't see that you have any other choice. If you want your finger to heal, you’ll need this splint. And you don’t know how to apply it properly, which means you’ll need to let me do it.”

They stared at one another, at an impasse. The man frowned at the sight of Barry and his pale, cold face. After a moment, Thawne sighed.

“So, Mr. Allen, may I proceed?”

Maybe it was the way he said it, like if Barry said no, he really would just leave it alone and let Barry’s finger heal wrong. Maybe it was the reasonableness, and the way he was explaining himself, like so few adults bothered to do. After several moments, Barry nodded, allowing Thawne to move closer.

When Thawne was just a foot away, he reached out and slowly, so slowly Barry couldn’t even register the movement, lifted Barry’s hand up. He inspected it calmly, ran his fingers along it probingly. He sighed, frustrated 

“Alright. So I said I wouldn’t hurt you if you didn’t deserve it, but your bones need to be reset in order to align properly and heal. Which means I’m going to have to reset them, and that  _ will _ hurt.”

Barry didn’t jerk his hand away, entwined as it was with Thawne’s, but it was a close thing.

“What do you mean they need to be reset?” The man frowned at Barry’s question, thinking for a moment.

“Have you ever broken a coffee cup? Or a plate?” At Barry’s nod, he continued. “If it’s a clean break, you can repair the cup, but only if you line the pieces up perfectly before you glue it together.  _ This _ ,” He nodded towards Barry’s hand. “Was a clean break, so in order to heal properly, we need to line the pieces back up before you body can ‘glue it back together,’ and do so wrong. Lining the pieces up, however, will not be pleasant.”

Barry narrowed his eyes.

“It sounds like an excuse to hurt me,” he said. The corner of Thawne’s lips twitched. 

“It does indeed. I can’t promise not to enjoy it, but I can promise to make it quick. If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to. Just know that I will likely have to break it again later to reset it, and you are more likely to regain the usage of that finger if it heals properly the first time.”

It occured to Barry how odd it was, that Thawne was trying to convince him at all. It felt a little surreal; could this really be the man who’d caused this, who’d snarled and snapped Barry's finger in the first place?

“Just… Just give me a minute?”

“Certainly,” the man said. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

Barry took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to have to see it.

They sat still for several moments. 

“Okay. I'm ready.”

Thawne wrapped his hand, slowly around Barry's broken finger. He didn’t count down - just pulled until Barry could feel his finger pop and his bone click back into place. Barry didn’t cry, but he did whimper as Thawne carefully wrapped a bandage around his finger and set it into the splint. Barry opened his eyes and watched the man tape his ring finger to his middle. He searched Thawne’s face, watching him carefully.

_ ‘He seems entranced _ ,’ Barry thought.

Thawne’s total attention was fixed onto Barry’s hand. Every little twitch of pain had the man breathing in short quick huffs. He was holding Barry’s bruised wrist with his left hand, keeping Barry’s hand steady. As he finished wrapping it, he ran the nail of his index finger against the ring of black and blue skin that had been left around Barry's wrists. 

Barry sucked in air quickly, an involuntary action - too short to be a gasp. He was uncomfortably aware of how close Thawne’s face was to his. How warm his hands were. 

Thawne’s eyes darted up. He drank in Barry’s expression, riveted.

For a moment they were frozen, tension so thick it could be cut with a knife, and suddenly Thawne’s face went blank, expression shuttering closed. He cleared his throat and pulled his hands away, pretending nothing had happened. He turned to the pile of clothes he’d dropped earlier.

“Would you prefer to change into your new clothes on your own, or with assistance?”

His demeanor had changed again; Thawne’s posture straightened, almost robotically, and his voice went hard, business like.

“On my own,” Barry said. He shivered, feeling exposed. He waited, for a moment, for Thawne to try to convince him to let him near again, to have another reason to touch Barry. Instead, Thawne nodded succinctly.

“Your sheets weren’t done getting cleaned, and the mattress is still wet from its stint in the shower. I brought you two blankets and a sweatshirt to compensate.”

“Wow,” Barry said, picking through the clothes as Thawne tossed them toward him. “You really don’t want me to get hypothermia, huh?”

“It would be inconvenient,” Thawne said blandly. Barry pulled a fresh pair of underwear and dark blue pajama pants from the pile but sat with them in his lap, unwilling to change in front of Thawne’s penetrating gaze. Thawne’s lips twitched again, and he said, almost magnanimously, “I’ll leave you to it then. I’ll be back with food and your mattress when your punishment is over.”

“When will the punishment be over?”

Thawne’s lips twisted into a mean little smile.

“When you've learned the lesson. Goodnight, Mr. Allen.”

He stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him with a thud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who's left comments! i read all of them and i Love You All.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's me again! sorry i haven't updated, i've had a busy week or two.

Iris didn't take the bus to school on Monday morning. Instead she sat in the back of her dad's police cruiser, alone, and waited until he slowed to an idle in front of the school's main doors. This was something he'd insisted on, watching her enter the school through the front doors. She never went in through the front doors. She and Barry always waited until the doors by the field were pushed open by a teacher, because their lockers were in the east wing.

Barry wasn't here to walk her to her locker. He wasn't going to meet up with her at lunch or steal her algebra book because he forgot his at home, _again,_ or covertly slide an empty tic-tac-toe grid towards her in physics because she lost the last two games and he was feeling generous enough to let her go first this time.

Iris wished, abruptly, that she hadn't fought so hard to come to school today. Last Friday at the station had been terrible, even if the dispatch ladies had been nice to her and let her sit with them while they answered calls. It was boring and it was stressful and she never forgot for a second that she was there because Barry was _missing._

Being at school without Barry was worse, somehow. Even before his mom died and he'd come to live with them, Barry had always been around. She could count on him like she could count on the sun to come up in the morning. Consistency - thy name is Barry Allen.

Walking down the halls alone was surreal. The white brick walls tilted strangely, the lockers on the wall slightly off colored. The ceiling seemed to hang lower, pressing in.

She didn't know if anyone tried to talk to her. She didn't think she was quite in control of her own body. Every step landed heavily on the cheap carpet. Her mind was fuzzy with static.

The bell rang shrilly overhead, and Iris realized that she was still staring into her open locker, backpack hanging loosely from one hand. Her algebra book sat unassumingly inside, wedged under her softball supplies bag.

Iris didn't have algebra until after lunch, during fifth period. Barry, unlucky as he was, had it first thing every morning. She grabbed the book,stuffed it into her backpack, shouldered closed her locker, and set off to class.

 

Eobard meant to return and put Barry out of his misery after two days, but every time he thought about what would have happened had Gideon not alerted him to the danger the boy was putting himself in, his blood began to boil in his veins and he had to take a “long walk” to keep himself from snapping at his peers. Doctor Hamilton, a geneticist he had been working with under Eiling for some time now, only grew more anxious with every break they took. Eobard didn’t know what prompted Hamilton to work with someone like Eiling, but whatever it was must be some time crunch, given the stringent time table he tried to keep them on. Toying with Hamilton was almost as relaxing as the runs he took to burn the anger out. In any case, the gorilla project they’d been working on was an interesting way to spend his time, if nothing else.

Eobard was a speedster. To say he didn’t have time to do something would almost always be falsity; he could move faster than sound, even on an off day. If he didn’t have time, he could make time.

Eobard could have certainly have ended Barry’s punishment after only two days. That might have even been the best decision to have made for Barry’s long term health. Malnutrition doesn’t lead to strong muscle development, after all, and he did still want Barry to become the Flash, at some point.

It was difficult to keep long term goals like that in mind, however, when he watched the footage, sped up for efficiency, at the end of every day. Watching Barry was habit now, soothing in its familiarity. The first day of his punishment, Barry paced. He wrung his hands, attempted to entertain himself, and tried to block out the light from the bulbs overhead. On the second day, still running on little to no sleep, he laid still, trying desperately to sleep. He got up to drink from the faucet and use the toilet.  Eobard watched every movement, fascinated. The Flash in captivity was a different animal altogether than the one he knew.

The boy looked utterly miserable. Too tired to stay awake, but too hungry, and overstimulated, to sleep. His stomach pains had curled Barry around his middle and he cringed every time his jostling irritated his splinted hand. The lights were doing their job admirably - any comfort he might have been able to derive from his physical position was overshadowed by the blaring lights overhead.

Eobard had been in solitary confinement. He could remember the way it felt, like the hours were slipping by, like time had no meaning. How even the escape of sleep was taken from you by the constant lighting. How they'd secured the bulbs high in the ceiling so they couldn't be broken.

The Barry on the screen flopped back to the ground and his little nest of blankets. His face creased, like he wanted to cry but knew it wouldn’t do any good.

 _‘One more day,’_   Eobard thought. ' _It’s what the Flash deserves._

 

Barry didn’t know how much time had passed. He wanted to say a few days; maybe four but probably only two. Time dragged on slowly, and any attempt to count the seconds depressed him by the time he reached the two hour mark. It was hard to tell anything with the consistently shining lights and the utter lack of interaction from his environment.

 _‘And that’s probably intentional,’_ Barry thought sourly. ‘ _He doesn’t want me to know anything, even something as simple as the time.’_

It made Barry feel trapped. He paced in the room until his arms and legs got too heavy to swing, until his heart was hammering in his chest, just from the sheer effort of moving without energy. He wondered, idly, if the time thing was related to Thawne’s pain thing. If he liked Barry’s discomfort and confusion as much as he liked it when Barry was in physical pain.

The thought was nauseating. Even more depressing, Barry couldn’t force out any false cheer to spite the man. It was easier to be defiant, to hate him, to refuse to give Thawne what he wanted, when the man was there in person.

With every passing minute and every stomach cramp, the yawning dread in his throat climbed higher into his mouth. Barry’s mind went back to the worry he’d had earlier; what if Thawne had been caught? Or worse, what if he’d gotten hit by a car and died en route to the hospital, unable to tell anyone where Barry was? Would Barry wait here forever, until his body finally gave out and he starved to death?

What if that was the plan? What if Thawne was totally fine - he just didn’t care if Barry lived or died.

The thought was irrational. He knew that. He knew that Thawne had a vested interest in Barry’s continued well-being. The stunt with the flooded outlet, and the barely concealed fury man had shown in response, had proven that much. Barry knew that, logically. The problem was, a person could know something as being factually true, but still not quite believe it.

Eventually he stared, glassy-eyed, at the air in the direction of the heavy metal door. He was too tired to focus on it properly. Barry was laid on his side, his injured hand resting over his cramping stomach, his right hand pillowing his head off the cool floor. The two blankets that Thawne had brought him provided only a small degree of insulation from the cold; he had one under him to protect him from the concrete, and the other cocooned around his legs and feet, carefully billowed out around where his left hand sat. The hooded sweatshirt that was brought to him was an adults’ medium, and it dwarfed him. He put it on, because every little bit helped, but it was reluctant.

Time passed slowly.

Barry was returning from his fifth trip to the bathroom when he suddenly jerked his head up and strained his ears. He’d thought he had heard something.

There - again!

Barry heard a jingling of metal hitting metal, keys jingling, before the tell-tale sound of a lock releasing. The door swung open.

Thawne was back in his informal clothes - a long black sleeved shirt and dark grey sweatpants.

‘ _The nicer clothes from before must have been for work,’_ Barry thought. ‘ _I hope the water ruined them.’_

“I see you haven’t used the shower yet,” Thawne said, walking further into the room. Carefully balanced between two hands was the metal plate from before. This time a bowl and the mug from before sat unassumingly next to a stack of crackers and several slices of cheese.

“It’s too cold in here to shower. Besides, I don’t have any towels,” Barry said. His eyes were drawn magnetically to the faint wafts of steam rising from the bowl. Thawne set the food down in front of him, and Barry saw that the cup was filled with an amber liquid, and that the bowl held some kind of vegetable broth.

“Towels are a privilege. Everything I choose to give you, the blankets, the clothes, the food; they’re all privileges. They can be taken away.”

Barry didn’t move towards the food, though he desperately wanted to. He forcibly looked away from the plate and glared up at Thawne.

“Is that what that is? Some kind of taunt? ‘Everything’s a privilege, you have no control, here’s what you’ve been missing this whole time because you made me break your finger’?”

Thawne sat down across from Barry, across from the plate of food, and quirked his lips up into an amused looking smile. He waved a hand to the plate encouragingly.

“ _This_ is the end of your punishment. You’ve been miserable the past couple days, wet, cold, and hungry. You’ve suffered enough. This is the end of that.” Barry couldn’t make himself move. This had all the makings of a trap. He wanted the food so badly, but he didn’t want to take it if it meant implying he was okay with this.

Thawne sighed.

“You really ought to just eat it, Barry.”

Barry‘s stomach gurgled. He moved his uninjured right hand cautiously towards the plate, giving in. When Thawne didn’t move, or even twitch, to stop him, it was like something in Barry finally snapped. He lunged.

He went for the soup first, and drank like a man possessed. He tilted the bowl until his mouth was full and swallowed as fast as he could. The broth was light, barely thicker than water. It tasted so good; he could taste the sweetness of the carrots.

“Easy, go slowly,” the man said. Barry watched him with his peripheral vision, but Thawne didn't make any move to stop him. “You don’t want to make yourself sick and lose all the calories you're getting right now to vomiting, do you?”

Barry pulled the bowl away to suck in great heaving breaths. Each one made his tired limbs and ribs ache. Thawne pushed the cup towards Barry.

“It’s apple juice. Juices and broths like these are good foods to eat when breaking a fast. It’s less of a shock to your system than something like a peanut butter sandwich would be.”

“Why are you,” Barry paused, taking a long, deep drink out of the camping mug. He felt almost like he was tasting apple juice for the first time. “Why are you being like this?”

Thawne raised an eyebrow.

“Like what? Rational?”

Barry grit his teeth.

“Calm. Helpful.”

Thawne shook his head.

“You’ve mistaken practicality for kindness. It’s not that I’m being kind to you; it’s that I’m doing what I told you I would. You behave, you get privileges. You misbehave, you get them taken away. It’s that simple.”

“So, what? That’s it, then? I nearly kill myself and you don’t feed me for a few days, and all is forgiven?”

“No,” Thawne said. Thawne’s nostrils flared and his hands twitched in his lap. ‘ _Was it at the thought of me dying? I feel like I should be worried that he wants me alive so badly.’_ “It’s not _forgiven_. Truthfully, I would like nothing more than to make you truly suffer starvation, and worse, for the stunt you pulled. Even now, I’m still incredibly angry about it. But I told you that your punishment wouldn’t be indefinite, and the things I _want_ to do to you would have even more long term effects on your emotional and physical well-being, so I’ll just have to compartmentalize the anger, as usual, and deal with it later.”

‘ _So on one hand, he’s definitely got anger issues, On the other hand, at least he’s aware of it.’_

Barry decided to see how far he could push before he started risking serious bodily harm. Based off of past behavior, he thought that he would get some sort of warning before he crossed that line. He hoped, anyways.

“You know that's not very healthy, right?”

“What’s not very healthy?”

Barry fiddled with one of his crackers. Between words, he'd been stuffing them in his mouth and had gotten to the last one, which he was reluctant to finish off. He couldn't see Thawne’s eyes move, but he knew, somehow, that the man had caught the movement. Barry set the cracker down.

“Bottling your anger up like that. It’s like shaking a coke; eventually the top’s gonna come off, it’ll explode, and you’ll be left standing there, holding an empty bottle.”

“Ah,” The man said, leaning back. It was like he was forcibly relaxing his body. He tilted his head a little and smiled at Barry. “But that’s presuming I don’t want the bottle to explode. If the bottle were to be aimed, however, controlled, set off when it is most advantageous to me, what harm is there in letting the pressure build?”

Barry didn't know how to respond to that. He had the sinking feeling that the bottle in question would be aimed at _him._

“You can't move forward if you're still living in the past,” Barry said finally, quoting something Nancy, his therapist, had said to him once. The indulgent smile slipped off Thawne's face. He didn’t frown, not really, but his eyes got distant, like he was seeing someone else in Barry's place.

“Some things can’t be forgiven. Or forgotten.”

Barry met Thawne’s strangely out of focus eyes. He thought of his mother’s killer and of his father, wrongly imprisoned.

“Yeah” he agreed. “Some things can’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor barr. my good boy doesn't deserve this. imma keep writin it tho. imma keep writin.
> 
> thank you to everyone who's left comments and kudos! i read all the comments and i love validation, so you're really the ones fueling this terrible fic. thanks so much! love y'all!!!


	7. Chapter 7

Henry Allen was a man with a tremendous amount of self-control. He grew up with a father going through “shell shock” and a mother who was prone to hysterics; he quickly became skilled at keeping his emotions and reactions sealed away, safe in obscurity behind walls.

It wasn’t healthy. Henry was aware of that. He knew that his composure in stressful situations wasn’t necessarily a good thing for his mental health. As a doctor, though, he found that his propensity for forcing himself into calm, becoming bedrock, was an asset. Patients and nurses all commented on his excellent bedside manner. On the way he always appeared to be in control, to know what he was doing, and how reassuring it was to work with such a calm and grounded man.

Henry Allen had never felt calm nor grounded. At least, not until Nora.

She was the first person he really allowed himself to be weak around. He trusted her with his life, but more importantly, with his heart. The first time he cried in front of her, the first time he let the wall down and felt vulnerable, it was when his mother finally passed away. She’d asked how he was doing, if he wanted to talk about it. To Henry’s surprise, the answer had been yes, and his whole sordid story had come pouring out of him.

She’d held his hand. Let him cry. Been his bedrock instead.

They had only been dating a few weeks. He knew then that he loved her.

They kept dating. They got married. He got used to relying on her, when it counted. And then, they’d gotten pregnant. They were going to have twins, two helpless babies for Henry and Nora to look after. The thought was daunting. It was almost overwhelming. Henry worried, every day, about being strong for them

He didn’t want to be his parents.

Nora never worried. “I’m here,” she would say. “Rely on me when they’re relying on you. We’re in this together.”

There were complications. Henry drove his wife to the hospital, breaking every traffic law on the way. They had to do a C-section, two weeks too early, to  save the babies. 

One of them died anyway. Nora cried. Henry couldn’t make himself to. She had understood.

In a fatherhood role, some things had changed and some things had stayed the same. Henry  had trained himself, since childhood, to be strong, capable, and rational; especially when interacting with people who depended on him. He couldn’t be vulnerable around Barry. It was contrary to his very being to cry in front of a child, who could do nothing to help him. He couldn’t put his feelings above his child’s, he just couldn’t. Even as a prisoner, he’d done his best to keep his anger, frustration, and grief away from Barry.

He wasn’t a man who bothered other people with his emotions, generally. He liked to keep it inside until he could work it out some other way, himself. He almost never lost his temper.

_ Almost  _ never.

“Are you fucking  _ kidding  _ me?” Henry Allen snarled. He was sitting across the visitation booth, a thick plane of plexiglas the only thing separating him from Joe West, still in his uniform.

“You’re seriously asking about  _ my _ enemies? I see my kid once a week, Joe! You had him every single day! If anyone’s enemies were coming after him, they’d be yours!”

Joe leaned back. He opened his mouth slightly.

“It’s been a week, now!” Henry continued. “You think I don’t know what that means? You think I don’t know he’s probably dead by now? I fucking know! You put me in here with the people that  _ do  _ that shit! At this point, I have to  _ hope  _ he’s dead! And you come in here and imply it’s my fault, that  _ I’ve _ been the ones making enemies?”

“I didn’t - I didn’t mean it like that,” Joe said. His chin was tucked in defensively, and it made Henry’s blood boil.

“I don’t have enemies in here, Joe. I’m very aware of what these people could do to my son if I ever pissed them off. I’ve been keeping my head down, staying out of the way, not involving myself. Because I would never endanger Barry like that. And you come in here, implying it’s my fault, when  _ you’re the one who wasn’t there to pick him up?" _

Joe took the outbursts they were punches, looking resigned and tired and guilty. Henry’s fists were clenched so tightly he felt his fingernails draw blood.

“I'm doing everything I can, Henry.”

He stared at the glass between them, cataloging every scratch and nick. He couldn't even see the detective anymore, not really. Instead he saw his other child, the one they'd lost, pale and still, the umbilical cord wrapped around his tiny neck. Whose name was going to be Eugene.

Henry unclenched his hands. He coiled his grief and rage until they were safely locked away, until he could meet Joe West's eyes without a corresponding sob for his children. He let one, deep, breath out of his mouth.

“Don't come back here, Joe,” he said. “Not until you bring Barry home.”

 

Time passed. Things settled. Barry gave a bit of thought to what Thawne had said about rewarding good behavior.

‘ _ What counts as “good behavior,” anyways?’ _ Barry thought. ‘ _I_ _ s it just that I don't question him? That seems a bit… easy.” _

And yet, it seemed to be working so far. Barry's mattress, pillow, and sheets were returned after, what he was told had been, two more days. Food was brought to him, passed through the slot on the door. The bars made a reappearance, and he'd been given two boxes of raisins and several heads of raw broccoli instead of apples and carrots. Thawne came inconsistently; one time Barry could have sworn he'd  _ just _ been there an hour ago before he dropped more food off, another time Barry's inner clock told him it had been at least six hours since he'd last heard Thawne.

He was so tired. Even covering his eyes with the pillow and blankets, he could still tell that the lights were on.

They were disorienting. He had to get them turned off.

“Wait,” he said, the next time he heard the tell-tale scraping of Thawne’s rubber soled shoes against the concrete floor. “I want to ask you something.”

There was nothing for a moment.

“Then ask, Mr. Allen,” the man said. He didn't sound annoyed yet.

‘ _ Might as well ask while I can, right?’ _

“I've been…  _ good _ , haven’t I?” Barry didn’t like the way the sentence felt in his mouth. It was patronizing, like he was usually a misbehaving toddler.

“Your behavior has been adequate, yes. That’s why your things have been returned.”

“Could I…” Barry hesitated. He clenched his abdomen, physically bracing himself. “Could I request something?”

There was a quiet  _ whumpf _ outside the door Barry heard the man sigh.

“I suppose it depends on what you want to request. And if you think you deserve it.”

Barry swallowed. He wanted to scoot away from the door, but he needed to be close to hear Thawne through it. Thawne sounded closer to the food slot than he had been. Had he sat down?

“I want you to turn off the lights. Not! Not forever! Just,” Once Barry started, the words began pouring out. A torrential flood of complaints. “I can't sleep with the lights on and it's driving me crazy and I keep thinking I'm hearing things, but whenever I say something, you don't answer, and I don't think I've slept well since I got here and I’ve had a headache since you starved me and no matter how much water I drink it doesn’t go away..”

“Hmm,” Thawne said. It wasn’t a very promising  _ hmm _ . Barry very consciously didn't allow himself to fidget. He was as still and focused as he'd ever been in this damn room. “You still haven't used the shower.”

Barry blinked at the subject change, and then felt a surge of nausea. He swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

“I, I told you I didn't have any towels.”

“And I told you, Barry Allen, that towels and the like were a  _ privilege.  _ You're a thirteen year old boy; it’s starting to stink in there. If you could do the bare minimum and bathe yourself, without being forced to,  _ like a child _ , I suppose I would consider your request.”

Barry's face burned. He'd been doing nothing but sleeping, sweating, pacing, and crying for what had been at least a week. He was sure he did smell filthy. Every time he used the bathroom, though, he was hyper-aware of the camera pointed straight at the shower.

He wanted to sleep so badly.

“Okay,” he said quietly. If he refused to shower, he didn't doubt Thawne would come in eventually and force him, and that if he pushed Thawne into doing that, it would come with a punishment. That wouldn't help his chances of getting the lights off. If he got it over with, Thawne might give him some kind of reward. He didn't really have a choice.

“Good. You’ll need to remove your bandages and splint before you get in the shower. Remove them and your clothes and leave them in the front room. I'll come in with a fresh set of clothes to replace them. Once you’re dressed, I’ll come in reapply your bandages and finger splint. Any questions?”

He almost didn’t want to ask, but it was better to get permission now than get punished for doing it without permission later

“Can I shut the bathroom door?”

Thawne laughed, startled, on the other side of the door. He grunted as he, presumably, stood up.

“Why not? Have a good shower, Mr. Allen. I'll see you soon.”

Quietly, almost to himself, Barry whispered, "See you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the comments and kudos!! i can't believe y'all, you've been so supportive! thank you so much! we out here, writing self indulgent creepy bullshit. i might as well change the summary of this fic to "aka the author projects their own issues onto all (ALL) the characters"


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there everybody. i've gotten a couple comments that were like "surely eo is aware he can't just... keep starving and mistreating a small child?? and expect him to bounce back every time??" and this is my answer to that. please enjoy

Engaging Gideon in any task even tangentially related to Barry Allen was always a gamble. No matter what version of the adaptive neural network, it always had a bias when it came to Barry Allen. Push come to shove, it would always value Allen's life, just slightly more, than a stranger's. This was contrary to its original programming. The good old, “all lives are precious” protocol. Straight from Isaac Asimov, it may be, but it was prioritized for a reason.

The first Gideon, the very first prototype artificial intelligence neural network with the designation “Gideon,” was built by Barry Allen, with the assistance of both Francisco Ramon and Victor Stone. While the others made valuable contributions, the project was well known to be primarily the Flash’ project. He was the only one with the time, inclination, and speed to research, learn, synthesize a program that could tap into the Speed Force. Gideon’s first task had been extrapolating data from and predicting likely Speed Force reactions to changes in the timeline, and vice versa. She helped the Flash monitor the timeline and correct potential aberrations. To do this, she had to have both a stellar morality system, akin to a human's, and still simultaneously possess a program's ability to prioritize chronologically important moments and people over others.

In short, she was a feat of modern technology. Something only a speedster could have created, with their insight to timeline fluctuations. She was also far too valuable to remain solely in Allen's hands.

Eobard hadn't stolen her, per se. Just copied her data and restored her to the original, prototype programming. Then, using what he knew of the Gideon the Flash had programmed, he reverse engineered her code, rewrote it, and made his own Gideon. A Gideon 2.0. One that would work with him, instead.

The knowledge of her own creation at the hands of Barry Allen, at the most base level, could not be forgotten, however. Her analysis of the timeline kept her all too aware to whom she owed her existence. Eobard may have shaped this Gideon, but Barry Allen had breathed the first spark of life into her, and all Gideon’s, code.  At her core, she would always answer, at least a little, to Barry Allen.

Privately, Eobard couldn’t resent her for that. He, too, owed a great deal to the Flash. He could relate.

“The subject's musculature has atrophied at a rate of point three seven percent since his confinement began seven days ago. Six pounds have been lost, likely due to a combination of stress, malnutrition and sleep deprivation.”

Eobard pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I didn't ask for the facts, Gideon, I asked what you thought about Barry's request.”

The computer terminals that housed Gideon’s servers hummed and the fans switched on inside to cool her down.

“I have provided you data I believe to be relevant to your query. The subject’s captivity has had a detrimental effect on his health. Should this trend continue, I predict an eighty three percent probability of failure. That is to say, a future where Barry Allen does not become the Flash.”

“Even if our lives _didn’t_ depend on him becoming the Flash, finding out that I’ve wasted two years would be less than ideal, to say the least,” He said, leaning back in his leather computer chair. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yes, Professor.”

Eobard frowned at Gideon’s servers. She couldn’t perceive it, since he didn’t have any cameras pointed towards himself for her to see through, but it made him feel better. He idly drummed his fingers against the armrest on his chair. Gideon said nothing.

“You want me to turn off the lights,” he said. He didn’t frame it as a question.

“Analysis so far indicates that further mistreatment will only prove detrimental in the long-term. Studies have shown that humans in captivity have severe degradation to both mental and physical processes, as well as serious social impairment. Combined with a lack of stimulation and a consistent light cycle to set his circadian rhythm to, I doubt the subject will make it to his sixteenth birthday, let alone to the year the particle accelerator construction is completed.”

Eobard’s lips twitched up, almost of their own accord, and he said pleasantly, “My, what a compelling argument you’ve made, Gideon. I only have one problem with that  - he hasn’t _earned it yet._ ”

Gideon paused. Her servers whirred. Eobard knew that if she had her holographic projector, her simulated lips would have been thoughtfully pursed. It was a mannerism she favored using when she disagreed with Eobard, and one he was used to being on the receiving end.

“I wasn’t aware such basic care was something that needed to be earned, Professor.”

It was a stand-off. Eobard knew she was right, he just didn’t want to have to admit that. It was far easier to intimidate the person you were arguing with into agreeing with you when they were a _person_ , Eobard reflected.

“I wonder if a young Eobard Thawne would agree with you,” she said, voice even more carefully neutral than it usually was. Then, before he could retaliate, she said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have a number of diagnostic scans I must give my full attention to. Goodnight, Professor.”

The fans in her servers shut down and her GPU audibly slowed down. Eobard knew she wouldn’t be responding now unless it was a life threatening, or server threatening, emergency. Giving her the autonomy to run diagnostics and troubleshoot herself eased the hassle of having to do it himself, but also gave her an easy out when she just didn’t want to argue with him anymore. Logically, Eobard knew the trade off was worth it. It didn’t stop him from kicking his chair away from the servers in disgust and storming off.

He left the server room and the condo itself, entirely behind, anger bubbling as he ran. He was in the forest, digging his bare feet into the dirt, huffing out breaths into the still and chilled air until his breaths were steady, uniform. Until he could face the the boy he had locked in a bunker without wanting to strangle him. Until he could admit to himself, that Gideon, as usual, was right.

In those moments, Speed Force surging around him, in him, only he was alive, only he was _real_. Soon, he knew, that would change. Soon, there'd be another to complete the circuit, as it should be.

First, though, he needed to deliver those clean clothes.

 

Barry cranked the heat up on the shower spout until the bathroom was filled with steam and it felt like he was breathing in water. He couldn’t see the camera’s blinking red lights across the room. The whole bathroom smelled like his shampoo. With his eyes closed, he could almost pretend he was at home, in Joe’s house, in the bathroom he shared with Iris. Any minute now she’d bang on the door and yell about him hogging all the hot water.

If he cried while he was in the shower, no one but him would know. Water was running down his face regardless. It was fine.

He stood under the showerhead until his whole body was pruney and his skin was lobster red from the heat, and then a little longer. Now that he was in the shower, he didn’t want to leave it. With the door closed and the camera obscured, it felt safe. Which was a little ironic, considering what happened to him the last time he was under the shower spray.

His hand, blocked off from the direct spray, throbbed at the reminder. He sighed.

Barry shut off the water. He stood still, water dripping off his hair and running down his back. He wrapped his arms around himself and moved the curtain out of the way, stepping quickly, but carefully, towards the portion of the wall where he knew the door to be. The bathroom was so obscured by the steam, he could only make out the outline of it.

Barry stood in front of it, unwilling to go any farther. What would Thawne do to him if he dawdled too long? Would he break another finger? His whole hand? Or would he just let him sit in here, naked and exposed, until he got too hungry to resist coming out for food? Would it be back to starvation? Who’s to say there was even any clothes waiting for him, right now?

The nutrition bars he ate earlier felt heavy in his stomach, weighing him down like a stack of bricks. He wished, suddenly, that Thawne had put him in here with a treadmill or something. He hadn’t felt this much anxiety and resentment and _dread_ since he woke up a year ago to see the water rising out of his aquarium in the middle of the night. There wasn't enough room for him to walk the excess energy off, much less run.

Would he go out, and let the cameras see him naked? Or would he stay in here until Thawne stormed in and _made him_  go out _anyways_? He didn’t know that he had it in him to stay brave if Thawne were to come into the bathroom and drag him out. Not when he was naked. The man was intimidating enough when Barry was clothed.

Barry took a deep breath. He set his hand on the door knob. He stared at his hand, still undecided. What if this was some elaborate scheme to get him naked?

He turned the knob. The door unlatched. Barry stuck his still dripping head out first, keeping his body concealed behind it.

A neat stack of clothes sat next to the door. Barry grabbed it, quickly, and dragged it in for inspection. Thawne had left him: a pair of underwear, another white t-shirt, a pair of flannel pajama pants, a set of sturdy feeling socks and another oversized sweatshirt, this one a dark red.  At the very bottom of the stack, and now already damp from being brought into the drenched bathroom, was a towel.

Barry thought about it as he dried off and got dressed. Was the towel Thawne being reasonable? Or was it a “reward” for listening, for doing what Thawne wanted, for not making it difficult?

He was getting really tired of not being able to take things at face value.

Once he was dressed, he picked the towel up from where he’d tossed it and left the bathroom. Thawne was in the main room, leaning against the wall, waiting for him. In his hands were Barry’s splint and a new roll of bandages.

Thawne was barefoot. His feet were covered in dirt, several shades darker than his pale face. He didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Come on,” he said. Barry noticed he wasn’t really looking at him, more in his general direction. He wasn’t sure if that made him any more or less uncomfortable. “Let’s get that hand wrapped.”

Thawne made no move to approach Barry, so Barry walked closer instead. It went contrary to his every instinct. He suspected that Thawne knew that. He didn’t say anything, just held his own hand up for Barry’s. Barry, reluctantly, presented his hand and injured finger to Thawne.

“Can you show me? So next time I can do it myself?”

Thawne’s eyes snapped up from his hand to stare, instead, into Barry’s. Barry, very deliberately, held the eye contact. Something, some quick flash of emotion, flitted across the man’s face.

“Of course,” he said. He sounded like a teacher. “Pay attention; I won’t be explaining it twice.”

Sometime later, when Barry was alone again, hand wrapped, and warmly cocooned under two thick blankets, he thought about that expression, about what it may have meant. Above him, just as he began to close his eyes, the lights went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope i got Gideon right. I was trying to go for a JARVIS vibe. like is self aware and has desires, but still completes their primary function. in this Gideon's case, that function would be "assist Professor Eobard Thawne" she is a little biased towards Barry, but not so much that she would prioritize his safety over hers, or over Eo's. at least, not without working out a loop hole.
> 
> thank you to everybody for your comments! i have read all of them and i love u. if you're still reading this, i'm truly astonished by your commitment to this idea. i'm a little astonished i'm still writing, to be honest. it's all thanks to you guys!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we out here, updating our fic three weeks later. BUT! at least it's updated. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> BIG shout out to everybody in the eobarry discord.

Things started showing up in the room while Barry slept. He’d fall asleep one night, the grey room dark and lifeless, and wake up to something new. At first, it was a Sudoku book. Barry fell asleep with the pen it came with clenched tightly in his hands, his body curled around it. He used it to keep a tally mark on the lip of his mattress. By the time he actually touched the book of Sudoku puzzles itself, it had been four days since it first showed up in his room, and he was left wishing he had been given a pencil instead of a pen.

The day after he first started using the book and the pen as intended, he got another thing while he slept. This time it was a Rubix Cube. Then there was an astronomy book. A physics book. A jigsaw puzzle.

Barry didn’t know what to do with it all. Just the other day, he had to negotiate with Thawne to _turn the lights off to sleep_. Now Thawne was giving him things to keep him entertained all day, completely unprompted. He was already on the third chapter of the physics textbook, and the fourth of the astronomy one. They were the sort of thing that Barry loved.

It made him deeply suspicious. Before, they’d been working within a bartering system. If Thawne was giving him these things, what would he want for it?

The next day, fifteen day into his confinement, Barry found a note wedged under one of the nutritional bars Thawne had delivered on the metal camping tray.

_'The lights are programmed to be off for precisely nine hours, starting at nine pm, and ending at six am. Your waking up at six am will not be enforced, however. I’ve been… remiss, I suppose, in my providing for you thus far. I’ve provided you with some things to remedy that - without some sort of stimuli, your mental facilities would have begun to deteriorate in earnest. That outcome, safe to say, is less than ideal._

_You won’t be leaving this place for a long time, Barry, but your stay here doesn’t have to be intolerable. Something to think about.’_

The note wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be. It’s not like there were very many people it could have come from.

Barry stared down at it. He set it down. He walked back to his mattress, and pulled up the sheets to see the tally marks he’d made.

Two neat sets of five and one incomplete tally of four stood out against the crisp white of the mattress. The blue ink of the pen looked too ordinary, too plain. He popped the cap off of the ballpoint pen and shook it, trying to get the ink to run. He tested it on his hand. A dark blue line ran across his palm, along the crease of his thumb. He marked another line, diagonal, across the four lines to make it three sets of five, and put the cap back on the pen.

It’d been two weeks since he’d seen Joe and Iris. Three weeks since he’d seen his father. The words on the note Thawne had left echoed through the caverns of his brain, like the man had said them aloud. Barry could still hear the tone of voice he would have used, the composed way he would have held himself.

‘ _You won’t be leaving this place for a long time,’_   Thawne whispered. His mouth curled up in a self-satisfied smile. His blue eyes, the same as the pen, seemed to glint in Barry’s imagination. Barry suddenly felt a resurgent wave of nausea, and ran to the bathroom. He lurched to the toilet, retching and spitting what little he’d eaten and drank into the porcelain bowl.

Fifteen days. Two weeks.

And Joe still hadn’t found him.

He crawled back to his mattress, got under the covers, and closed his eyes. He didn’t feel like eating.

 

Barry woke up to the sound of the large metal door unlatching. He opened his right eye, the one closest to the mattress and thus shielded by his nose, less than a sliver, and watched Thawne step into the room through his eyelashes.

“Oh, Barry,” the man said. Barry almost flinched, but kept his breath steady. Joe and Iris had always told him he was a heavy sleeper - he’d never woken up during the past week of Thawne leaving things. His nap had thrown off his sleeping schedule, and woken him in the middle of the night. This was an excellent opportunity to observe his captor without the danger of actualy having to _interact_ with him. He couldn’t blow this with a flinch!

“I suppose it was the note that prompted this, hm?” Thawne continued. Barry watched the man’s feet move around the room. He was a pacer, too. “It was to be expected. A normal person would be experiencing a bout of depression, let alone a thirteen year old boy. Sometimes, well,” Thawne almost sighed here, interrupting his own monologue. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re really Barry Allen. That it’s really going to go according to plan.”

The footsteps stopped. Thawne’s feet were pointed in Barry’s direction. Barry concentrated on keeping his breaths steady and his body relaxed; every instinct was screaming at him to get away, that a predator was staring right at him.

“But, we’re still here, aren’t we? The timeline hasn’t imploded yet. I must be doing something right.”

Barry couldn't control himself. He blinked, eyes opening to stare up at Thawne in confusion. What the hell does he mean, ‘timeline’?

Thawne’s pivoted, walking towards the door, missing Barry’s lapse in judgement entirely. He sets a worn out looking book down beside the tray by the now closed door.

Barry, watching Thawne’s movements avidly for any clue as to how to open the door when it automatically locks, didn’t dare to blink. This was something he’d wondered about, how Thawne unlocked the door from the inside, when there wasn’t any keyholes.

As it turns out,  Thawne _didn’t_ unlock the door. Instead, his body blurred and he stepped _right through it._

Barry gazed, horrified at the door. His stomach, empty from vomiting early, clenched with an attempt to heave up whatever remained.

For less than a second, there, Barry saw an arc of red electricity.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *comes up for fucking air* HI EVERYBODY I'M ALIVE. I SAW ALL YOUR MESSAGES AND FELT VERY VERY GUILTY FOR NOT UPDATING. THIS IS FOR EVERYONE WHO LEFT SWEET COMMENTS IN MY INBOX, AND ESPECIALLY FOR THE ANON WHO MESSAGED MY TUMBLR A FEW DAYS AGO ASKING IF THIS HAD BEEN ABANDONED. TURNS OUT GUILT TRIPS DO WORK ON ME, REALLY REALLY WELL. I LOVE YOU ALL.
> 
> also this chapter may not be what you were expecting, but it felt like it was time for a pause. hope yall like it.

Iris didn't spend a lot of time in her own house anymore. Not since Barry got taken. She stayed at a friend's house after school, or she was at her softball practice until she could be picked up, or she was brought to the station and directed to a table where she could do her homework. Her dad would get off work, pick her up, and take her home.

She wanted to be mad at him, but mostly she just felt lonely. The house felt empty with just her in it; she hadn't been alone in it for two years. Barry's absence was a raw, aching wound. Barry's things were still laying around the house, like he would just walk in one day and start using them again.

Walking down the hallway that night before going to bed, she glanced at his doorway. It was the nightly ritual she had gotten into, walk up the stairs, brush her teeth, stare at Barry's closed door for several minutes, heart sick, and wish he was there.

Barry's door was never closed when he lived with them. He had nightmares when it was closed. He couldn't go to sleep without the background noise of Iris and her dad moving around. Her dad had closed the door to his room a couple of days ago. She didn't have to ask why - she knew. Staring into that empty room, red night light blinking, had been almost too much to stomach.

That night, however, her ritual was interrupted. Something was wrong with the door. Off, somehow. It took her a few moments to see it.

The door handle wasn't latched.

Barry's door handle had always stuck. Another reason his door was almost always open was because the handle’s latch got stuck in the door when you turned it inward. In order to get it to latch on the strike plate, you had to deliberately turn it all the way. It was a well ingrained habit for the West family to do it.

Iris approached the door. Pushed on it. It swung open with no complaints.

It hadn't been latched.

 _Maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe Dad just forgot_ , she thought.

But her dad had been hovering over her all day, and it had been latched last night when she'd looked at the door. It couldn't have been her dad and it certainly hadn't been her.

She glanced towards her dad's room. His shower was still running. She had time.

Iris stepped lightly into Barry's room and closed the door behind her.

It was eerie, being in here without Barry. The red night light cast a menacing glow to the room, lighting up Barry's red comforter and white sheets. Everything was red, and the things that were already red to begin with seemed to be glowing. Iris hesitated, and then flipped the light switch on.

_Is anything else weird? Anything missing? Moved?_

Her eyes swept across the room, looking for irregularities. She started to notice things.

Some things she couldn't be sure of; it's not like she had an encyclopedic knowledge of where Barry liked to put his stuff. The two jigsaw puzzles he was missing, the half solved rubix cube he'd had, and a couple of the books he'd had lying around that were suddenly gone - they didn't prove anything. Maybe Barry had thrown those puzzles away, maybe he had the rubix cube on him that day when he was taken, maybe he'd loaned a couple of his books out. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

There was one thing she could be sure of, though. There was one book that never left this room, that had sat on its dedicated place on his bedside table since he moved in. It was his favorite book.

The book was called _The Practice Effect_ , and Iris had never read it. Iris scarcely touched that book. It was one of the few books he'd had before he came to live with them. From what Barry had said, it had been his mom's favorite book.

Barry's voice lit up in her ear, like he was right there, talking about the book. He'd liked to talk about books.

“See, it's got just the right about of sci-fi and fantasy meshed together to be interesting. It starts out with this scientist going through a portal to another world, so you're like ‘oh, yeah, this is definitely sci-fi,’ but then the world’s physics and technology are all hinky, and the society is, like, medieval! So it's also part mystery, because you have to figure out what's going on! And he saves a princess!”

It was something he shared with his mom. Iris didn't ask to read it, even though he'd offered. It was closely guarded, a fragile thread back to his family. He’d read it dozens of times, carefully holding it so as not to crease the spine anymore than it already was. Barry loved that book.

And it was gone.

Iris walked a little closer to the bedside table. Two weeks, or maybe more, of dust was layered onto the wood. The spot where the book usually sat was pristine.

She stared at it. Then, on a hunch, she went to Barry's closet.

She didn't bother looking at his clothes, instead flinging them to the side and digging through them with urgency. She pulled boxes out, old things that Barry never even looked at, until she got to the back of the closet.

Barry's therapist didn't like that he kept this, and her dad didn't either. They said that it was bad for him, that it was reinforcing his delusions. She only knew about it because he felt like he had to tell _someone_ and he had sworn her to secrecy. And because she said she'd believed him, even though she couldn't, not really. Staring at the back of the closet, Iris thought she might be sick.

The spot in the back of the closet where Barry's _Who Killed Mom_ board lived was empty. The wall was blank, like it'd never been there at all.

Someone had taken it. Just like Barry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, thank you all for reading this. i'm sorry for the long wait, and i hope you'll forgive me. iris really didn't want to be written, lol. i probably wrote out fifteen versions of this chapter smh.
> 
> please tell me what you think! again, thank you for all the comments. it's really you guys keepin me going. i'm @neoneco on tumblr, come visit me if you want to talk about anything!


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